Altibbi Chooses ilik to Build the Region’s First Integrated Teledermatology Pathway

After more than a decade of building the Middle East’s largest digital health platform, Altibbi is entering its next phase: ecosystem building.

The company, which reaches more than 350 million annual visits, has launched Next Health by Altibbi, a structured growth and partnership program designed to give selected healthtech companies direct access to its platform, technology, and regional distribution. Unlike traditional startup accelerators, Next Health is built around deep product and platform integration, with a focus on long-term deployment rather than short-term experimentation.

Following a selective regional review process, Altibbi chose ilik as the only company to join the program’s inaugural six-month cycle. While two companies were initially expected to be selected, Altibbi’s evaluation committee ultimately concluded that ilik alone met the integration, clinical, and scale-readiness criteria required for partnership.

Why dermatology, and why now

Altibbi’s decision reflects a broader shift in user demand across its platform. While the company has long served as a primary destination for general medical consultations, internal data shows a sustained rise in users seeking specialised guidance, particularly in dermatology.

In 2025 alone, more than 6.5 million high-intent interactions across Altibbi were tied to skincare and dermatology-related queries. Dermatology now represents 15 percent of all consultations, with demand concentrated in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and the wider GCC.

As users increasingly turn to Altibbi not just for diagnosis, but for clarity and next steps, the company began looking for a partner capable of delivering specialist care at scale. That partner, it concluded, already existed in ilik.

Founded in Dubai, ilik is the region’s first teledermatology platform focused on personalised, prescription-based skincare guided by licensed dermatologists. Through a structured digital assessment, photo review, and compounded formulas tailored to each user, ilik delivers a full dermatology care pathway digitally rather than generic skincare recommendations.

“We’re incredibly proud to be the inaugural company selected for Altibbi’s program,” said Dina Sidani, Founder and CEO of ilik. “It’s a strong signal that the work our team has put into building ilik is solving a real problem at scale.”

Where Altibbi established itself as the region’s primary access point for trusted medical advice, ilik built depth in one of healthcare’s most in-demand specialities. The pairing brings together distribution and specialisation, general care and focused expertise. That complementarity is what ultimately led to ilik being selected as the sole participant in Next Health’s first cycle.

Building an integrated care pathway

According to Jalil AlLabadi, CEO of Altibbi, ilik’s approach aligned directly with what Altibbi’s users were already seeking.

“ilik built something the region has been missing: a specialised, dermatologist-led model that delivers personalised care at meaningful scale,” AlLabadi said. “It matches exactly what millions of our users are looking for, which made the fit immediate. Next Health was designed for partnerships like this, where high-calibre innovators can scale through Altibbi’s infrastructure, traffic, and clinical expertise.”

Through the Next Health program, Altibbi is opening access to its engineering resources, AI capabilities, clinical oversight, and platform insights, while supporting ilik’s expansion into Saudi Arabia and other high-demand GCC markets.

Sidani said the partnership goes beyond distribution. “Working with Altibbi gives us access to scale and credibility, but the real alignment was cultural,” she said. “When Jalil said, ‘We failed a lot and learned a lot, and we want to pass those learnings on,’ it signaled a level of honesty and partnership that makes me confident in what we’ll build together.”

The collaboration will result in the region’s first fully integrated teledermatology pathway within a major telehealth platform, allowing users who already rely on Altibbi for primary care to move seamlessly into dermatologist-guided, personalised treatment.

With the global skincare market projected to reach USD 145.8 billion by 2028, and the GCC emerging as one of its fastest-growing regions, the timing is deliberate. The Middle East has long lacked a cohesive, clinically grounded teledermatology infrastructure.

Altibbi’s move suggests that the next phase of digital health in the region will be shaped less by standalone apps and more by integrated ecosystems, where scale, trust, and specialisation converge.

This marks more than a program selection. It signals the early formation of a regional digital dermatology ecosystem built on access, clinical oversight, and long-term platform integration.